Matt: I am, in a sense, advocating a series of redefinitions, but I'm not sure it as daunting, though I think it may be tremendously isolating (which I think is basically the sense that philosophical discourse is remote from common sense). As I see it, the fight against Platonism was there from the beginning and has never stopped. This gives us a tradition of wisdom that can be mined. What would be daunting is if one thought one had to scrap it all and start from the "beginning." I'm not sure a lot of good sense can be given to that notion of a "beginning," the historicist sense that Pirsig gives it being one of the few.
Where we disagree, and what I'll pick up further below, is that you think we should "embrace Platonism," whereas I have no idea why one would want to. The reason I balk is because I don't think "Platonism" is coextensive with "thinking," which is often a spin that is given to it when somebody is trying to convince us that it is daunting and unmovable (Pirsig occasionally slips into this identification). I think you are right, Platonism cannot be defeated on its own terms, but that's because the issue between Platonism and various anti-Platonisms are "the terms." In a loose sense of argument, anti-Platonism can certainly win, and I think have been slowly over time. What we need to do, and have been, are changing the terms of debate, the terms of discussion. This looser sense is what Pirsig was aiming at with "rhetoric," whereas "dialectic" was strict, logical "if P, then Q" stuff. What Pirsig saw is that logic requires assumptions to do anything, to make an argument. (I expand on this a bit here: http://pirsigaffliction.blogspot.com/2006/04/begging-question-moral-intu itions-and.html) Pirsig's attempt to evade Platonism is to question the assumptions guiding its arguments. In this sense, Pirsig was equating Platonism with, not logical argumentation or thinking, but with a set of assumptions that lead--through logical entailment--to a series of undesirable cultural malformations. "Back to rhetoric!" was Pirsig's call to cease thinking we had to think through Plato's categories (one of which pit logic against values) and see that there are other ways, that logic is a tool that we use for whatever purposes we set. Plato wished us to think that logic had its own desires, but Pirsig wanted to expose those purposes as Plato's, not logic's. Ron said prev: When he saw he could step out of the arena entirely. calling it SOM. creating a meta arena. Now he can come at it with it's own tools plus the original tool he created, the dynamic/static distinction. which in itself redefines the conceptual understanding of terms of subject/ object distinction. Matt: With the first part in the background, this is where I slap you on the wrist for Platonism. And, I think, this is largely what divided me from Bo--stop thinking Platonism/SOM is a _tool_. The tool metaphor itself should help us see what is wrong with this line of thinking: a tool is what it is because it is defined as being separate from the user of the tool. It is an aid for purposes of another (think of the expression, "You're a tool!"--meaning, you are letting yourself be used). A tool doesn't come attached with purposes (though it can be better or worse for some as opposed to others). Only a person using them has purposes and goals with which to wield them. Ron: It is that capacity in which I meant the term. Tools are wielded by individuals not the other way around. In my generation the one that coined the phrase I believe, "tool" meant the male organ. Which made the reference to someone who isn't very bright, selfish and unfeeling towards others, they are motivated by their own desires. A euphemism for a dick. Matt: I'd like to suggest that Pirsig's goal in ZMM was to expose Plato's sin as making us think his philosophy (encapsulated in the concept of "dialectic") was simply how things were done--you have to think with Platonic assumptions to be said to use Reason, be rational. As Pirsig sums up, in what we could call the thesis statement of ZMM, of what Pirsig is upset by in our current culture, "Reason was to be subordinate, logically, to Quality, and he was sure he would find the cause of its not being so back among the ancient Greeks, whose mythos had endowed our culture with the tendency _to do what is 'reasonable' even when it isn't any good_." So, in my view, saying "Platonism is a tool" is a Platonic sin, is a step backwards from the position Pirsig was hoping to leave us in at the end of ZMM. _Plato_ left us a lot of amazing tools in his writings, writings that can be mined almost indefinitely, and profitably even by anti-Platonists--but _Platonism_ is a different beast, not a tool but a philosophy, a set of assumptions with which we use tools to carry out. Ron: But those assumptions are tools also which was RMP's point. The main assumption he challenged was it's absoluteness in regard to certainty. The conflagration of assumptions with reality itself. This is the bogeyman of any metaphysical system. Just calling it SOM makes the distinction that it is an intellectual pattern and not intellect itself. I think you make an important distinction between using the concepts of Platonism and Platonism itself as a belief system. But to have it stand for SOM itself leaves out Aristotelianism and even Sophism to a large degree which challenged the traditional Greek cultural myths as well as Plato and Aristotles concept of "the good " and the thought that ethics are based on reason, and that there were logical reasons for behaving virtuously. This contrasted with the moral relativism of the sophists, who argued that many different behaviors could be seen as ethical by different societies. In many ways they can be credited for skeptic tradition. This brings me to the subject of redefining, or to be more precise, how MoQ ontology fits in and replaces SOM ontology, which I believe Pirsig does quite brilliantly. "Any ontology must give an account of which words refer to entities, which do not, why, and what categories result. When one applies this process to nouns such as electrons, energy, contract, happiness, time, truth, causality, and god, ontology becomes fundamental to many branches of philosophy."-wiki SOM's ontology traditionally makes this distinction as subject/object in it's categorization of nouns. example: Platonisms ontology only recognizes nouns that refer to concrete entities. (objectivism). What Pirsig does is restructure the entire edifice of SOM by simply swapping out ontology, specifically the treatment of nouns in sentences comprising philosophical statement from subject/object to dynamic/static. the ontology is to treat all nouns not as entities but patterns of value. distinguished by dynamic/static aspects. Pirsig supports this ontology with the Metaphysic of Quality which leans in the Aristotelian tradition of the formation of "the Good" while keeping the sophists contextual moral relativistic reservations in mind. Coupled with the support by physical cosmology as it relates to Quantum physics. The metaphysical reason Pirsig basis his ontology on is the physical cosmological theory that all reality is dynamic relative and ultimately uncertain. He solves this with Descartes certainty in being offering A James-ion empiricism in the style of the continental philosophers as a basis for a reason and logic. When I say embrace SOM I mean to incorporate it into our metaphysical theory, it provides the anti-thesis to our thesis. I feel it is important to define and understand it in order to define just what it is we are talking about with the MoQ. So in short, if we understand these concepts we should be able to have Quality discussions without charges of Platonism deflecting the meaning of the dialog. It should be a non-issue unless you are truly dealing with a subscriber to the absoluteness of SOM. I believe Pirsig stated that once MoQ is understood, it does not conflict with SOM only enhance it. 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